A Velvet Goodbye
by Indygodusk
Summary: It takes a moment for Hermione to comprehend his question and another to stop staring at him stupefied. Later she'll add not biting her tongue to her list of regrets, but made raw and emotional by passion, she finds herself stripped of filters. "Harry, I've never said no to you and I'm never going to say no to you." H/Hr
1. Chapter 1

**A Velvet Goodbye**

A Harry Potter Fanfiction

_By Indygodusk_

**AN:** Thanks for reading! This is only two parts and has a bittersweet ending. That being said, the second chapter has all the hot and heavy content for those who don't want that or only want that *wink*. Let me know what you think! Please! (See, I have manners!) I'll upload the second chapter in a day or two.

**Chapter 1**

Most people would be surprised to learn that Hermione Granger is secretly a sensualist. She likes soft textures in her robes and rich flavors on her tongue. Sometimes she pets Crookshanks for hours while reading a book, wallowing in the warm softness of his fur and the scent of paper and ink. Unfortunately at Hogwarts she'd been too busy learning and surviving to do more than occasionally treat herself. Indulging that side of herself becomes a reward instead of a habit.

After the war, she works hard to learn the rules about what it means to be seen as a successful adult in Wizarding Britain. It's a lot less clear than the rules at Hogwarts. There isn't time to indulge herself and, frankly, she doesn't feel like she deserves it. So many people had died in the war or were still suffering and by most measures of success, she's barely getting by instead of excelling. Hermione loves rules and feels safest when following them, but she struggles with finding an authority that she trusts, much less people worth following. The Ministry isn't trustworthy but that's where all the interesting jobs are so that's where she works.

A lot of rules in Wizarding society are unspoken but what gets written down she tries to follow. It feels safer that way and after the war she desperately craves safety, so much so that she's willing to compromise and experiment in areas her younger self refused to. And it doesn't matter if she thinks a lot of the rules are stupid because the people in power don't agree and they're the ones who can make her life more difficult and less safe.

So for months, she dresses in _Witch Weekly_'s pick for the most fashionable robes (structured with stiff and scratchy wool) and boots (with four-inch kitten heels and pointy toes that pinch no matter what charms she uses) and the pungent rose perfume polling as most popular in the lifestyle section of _The Daily Prophet_ (that makes her gag and try to hold her breath for the first ten minutes after putting it on). She's been making herself miserable but it's not like this is the first time in her life she's done that to achieve success. She's tracking how often she gets invited to impromptu meetings on influential projects or called on to submit ideas at work and the percentage of people who seek her out instead of avoiding her in social situations. The numbers show a statistically significant increase since she instituted her fashionable changes and bullying is trending down. She overhears compliments from both her supervisor in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures ("Granger's smartly-dressed and smartly-spoken") and Ron ("She looks like the girlfriends on the magazine covers"), so she feels like she has to keep going. She's not exactly happy but she's fitting in better than she ever had at school so she tells herself that life is going well.

Then Harry gets her alone and tells her to stop it.

"I—I don't know what you're talking about." She can't meet his eyes. They're this piercing green in the sun and feel like they're stripping back her layers until she's too hot, like she's naked. It's not a bad feeling but it does make her want things she's not supposed to. "No one else has complained."

"Then no one else watches you like I do." That makes her feel even more exposed. She likes the feeling, which is unfortunate since she knows Harry's doing it unintentionally. "Seriously Hermione, stop. You're making yourself unhappy by following stupid rules you don't need and I won't stand for it. I know for a fact that you don't like scratchy wool robes or the scent of roses. Wear what makes you feel good, you've earned that. Out of everyone, you deserve to be happy. Now, I'm taking you shopping and I won't take no for an answer."

Which just goes to show that as close as Harry watches, he doesn't see everything. There was never a chance she'd tell him no and shopping's a lot more innocuous than a prison break, bank theft, or defying a mass-murdering Dark Lord.

Harry takes Hermione to a small boutique she's never heard of called _Peppermint and Pearl_, though she recognizes the logo on the door from the scented candle Harry gave her during a stressful work project last month. Putting hands on her shoulders, Harry guides her inside to a rack of both sumptuous and chic looking robes along the wall. When she can't help but sigh, "Ohhh," in appreciation, she can feel Harry's quiet laugh rumbling from where his chest is pressed against her shoulder blades.

Putting his mouth by her ear, Harry orders her to, "Shop with your senses, 'Mione," before sliding his hands down her arms and stepping back. Sometimes when he calls her that she hears the words _my own_ instead of her name. She always makes sure to silently add the words _best friend_ so she takes it in the spirit he means. Hermione likes being Harry's best friend. She won't mess that up, not to mention she's got a boyfriend.

After running her hands across the rack of soft and sumptuous materials with pleasure, she notices that none of the robes have the have prices listed. Harry sees her looking and rolls his eyes, "Don't think about price, think about comfort. It won't be a problem. I promise." When he refuses to say anything further even with her hard look, she huffs and gives in, picking out new robes in silk, linen, and cashmere that make her fingertips tingle and her throat want to purr.

Hermione could keep petting the fabrics for longer but the facing aisle seduces her with smells both sophisticated and exotic. Harry whisks the clothing out of her arms and hands her an empty basket to fill with perfumes and lotions. Embracing the experience, Hermione picks up a French Lilac lotion that makes her shoulders unknot just looking at the moving picture on the label of lilac bushes budding and swaying in a soft breeze. The scent is delicate and sweet. She loves it and drops it into the basket. She adds an energizing body spray with notes of grapefruit, lemon, and rosemary that smells like three friends playing ring-around-the-rosies and giggling. Hermione could happily pick out ten more bottles but she doesn't really need them so she makes herself step away.

Tutting in disapproval, Harry reappears at her side and slides a jar of the boutique's Signature Peppermint Pearl Body Butter into her basket.

"I don't need that," she protests weakly.

"Maybe," he shrugs, "but you know you want it. Peppermint makes you smile and relax around bedtime. You love it."

"Okay fine, but that's enough. Really."

"Nope." Smirking, Harry disappears into the back of the store.

"Harry!" she whispers loudly, trying to get him back without venturing deeper into the shelves or calling the attention of the shopkeeper. She doesn't need more temptation. This is almost as bad as a bookstore, maybe worse because she lets herself go crazy in bookstores because she finds it easier to rationalize indulging her mind than her body. She's probably already spent too much today. She doesn't really need more and it's not like she's done anything special lately to deserve nice things.

When Harry returns, he's cradling three jewel-toned bottles in his arms. "Hermione, you have to get these!"

"I don't need three—" she looks at the labels "—bottles of bubble bath."

"But no, see, they're like a vacation in a jar. The bubbles and foam create landscapes of plants and animals and even soothing sounds and scents while you bathe. This is Jade Jungle, Carnelian Cruise, and Amethyst Adventure."

"How alliterative," she says dryly, barely restraining a smile at his enthusiasm.

Harry leans forward as if about to impart a secret. "You haven't even heard the best part. They make you feel like you're floating in _whipped cream_." Biting his lip, he widens his eyes, the rings around his irises a gray-green jade that matches the bubble bath in his arms.

Hermione knows she's beaten but can't help one last attempt. "You and Ron are the ones with the frankly unhealthy obsession with whipped cream, not me. I don't think you can eat bubble bath."

Looking forlornly at the bottles in his arms, he sighs. "I suppose we can just buy two bottles instead of all three."

Snorting a giggle, Hermione leans against Harry's shoulder until he meets her eyes. "How about one for each of us. That way you can try it out too and we can compare notes."

"Deal." Harry's teeth flash in a way that looks just a little too pleased and makes her wonder if she's just been played. "You take the Jade and I'll take the Carnelian." He dumps them in her basket. "I'll put back the Amethyst while you try on these." Harry crouches down and pulls out a pair of luxurious suede boots he'd hidden just around the corner.

Scratch that, she's definitely just been played. Before she can start scolding he dumps them in her arms and darts away. Sitting down on a bench, she sighs and picks up the boots with the intention of finding a flaw to justify why she's not buying them.

She forgot her weakness for suede.

Hermione spends the next five minutes petting the boots, discovering that not only is the suede velvety but that the inside lining feels like kitten fur. She feels like purring herself. She only slips them on her feet to prove they can't possibly as comfortable as they feel. She's wrong. They feel like walking on custard, soft and enveloping without any of the unpleasant squishing between the toes (and she knows about that thanks to kitchen magic gone wrong, thank you, Ron Weasley).

Basket overflowing, Hermione goes to pay the shopkeeper, unwilling to take off the suede boots now she's put them on but determined to leave before Harry finds even more things she just can't live without because she knows that whatever he shows up with next _she's going to buy_. The fact that this makes her smile is just more reason to leave now, while she can. As it is she braces herself for the cost of all these luxuries.

Hermione doesn't think about how suspicious it is that Harry never returned during her five minutes of suede boot petting until the shopkeeper packages up her purchases and hands the bags right over, saying, "The gentleman already took care of the bill."

Eyes narrowing, Hermione whips around to find Harry lurking outside the window. He pretends he doesn't see her looking. "Oh did he."

"Have a nice day," the shopkeeper tells her, failing to restrain an amused smile.

Marching outside, Hermione wallops Harry in the side with her bags. He's laughing, the wretch. "You can't just pay for all my things!"

Throwing his arm over her shoulder to keep from being hit again, Harry takes her bags and directs them back the way they'd come. "I think there's a bakery down this way. You can pay me back with a treacle tart."

Hermione spends the rest of the afternoon trying to convince Harry to tell her how much he just spent on her so she can pay him back. When Harry gets tired of her nagging he throws up his arms with a groan. "Okay, you know what? Nothing about today was a problem for me. It was all a pleasure I can easily afford. You wanna pay me back? Seeing you happier would pay me back. Do that and we're even, because I know you'd do the same for me."

And there's nothing she can say to that except huff and hide a smile against the arm she's wrapping her hands around as they walk down the street.

After that, and in response to Harry's urging, she slowly starts indulging herself more. Hermione makes a list of things she enjoys and starts letting herself have them, just because she can instead of making herself earn it every time. She thinks about what she really wants, and then about what she can actually have, and focuses on the second part of her list while trying to ignore the things culled from things from the first. It mostly works.

However, as she becomes happier she looks up and realizes that sometimes Ron… isn't. Harry isn't very happy either, but Harry's happiness is an ongoing project she'd been working on for years. She has bullet-point lists of long- and short-term plans for Harry that she revises quarterly. There's always been a lot about Ron that needs fixing but since Ron is a simpler man with simpler problems than Harry she thinks (hopes) Ron might be easier to make happy.

Her optimism doesn't work out. Ron seems simple but scratch the surface and he gets complicated or at least stubbornly difficult. It would be easy if Ron would just tell her what he needs to make him happy (besides whipped cream, quidditch, and wizarding chess), but when she asks, Ron doesn't even know what he wants. That or he says one thing and contradicts himself a few minutes or days later. He's not a man into introspection, so he doesn't even notice when he does it.

She loves Ron but dating him is frustrating. She wants him to be certain about himself and he's not, always comparing himself to other people. Ron's rarely comfortable in his own skin. That means he's not the rock she wishes he was—the rock she needs. It's a selfish thought so she doesn't ever say it out loud. Sometimes when Ron is talking about something random he thinks is important he gets this look on his face that says there are things he wishes about her that he's not saying too. She doesn't ask. It feels like an unspoken rule for keeping their relationship healthy.

They've dated for over a year but they're taking everything slow. They haven't moved in together or had sex. It just doesn't seem urgent. She's content to wait and, somewhat surprisingly, so is Ron (at least when he's thinking with his head and not his privates). Neither of them wants her to be another Molly Weasley with seven children. Ron definitely doesn't want seven children. Sometimes she thinks he doesn't want kids at all, at least not for a couple of decades at least, but they haven't talked about that either. Growing up with all the crowding, competition, hand-me-downs, and poverty is something he's always resented. Hermione's not ready for kids either, but she'd like one or two once her career is established, maybe even as soon as her thirties.

She and Ron love each other, but there are problems in their relationship and sex isn't the solution. They don't talk about those problems but they are definitely there. She'd rather fix at least a few of the problems she's already identified before adding more to the list. Besides, if she's being completely honest, while it's nice and fun to snuggle and make out, no matter how excited Ron sometimes gets (even with her rule of no touching below the belt), she never manages to feel a matching urgency. The sparks when they kiss never find enough tinder to turn into flames. Secretly she wonders if she's just not made for passion, at least not the physical kind. It isn't something she feels like she can talk to Ron about without hurting his feelings and having him make it all about himself instead of about her so she reads a lot of books and tries to be patient with herself and hope it sorts out later. Despite the popular perception, they're not the only young couple who's waiting to have sex, so at least she isn't alone in that. That she doesn't find it a challenge to keep to celibacy may not be as normal but there are only so many things she can worry about on any given day and that isn't even in the top twenty.

One Saturday Ron unexpectedly asks her to go ring shopping to get an idea of what style they'd both like. "Maybe we're both hesitating over things too much and making this more difficult than it needs to be. More commitment might actually fix a lot of our problems."

She feels bad for underestimating Ron and thinking he hadn't noticed all of the problems in their relationship too. She's not sure rings are the answer, but she doesn't have a better idea and she's always sort of expected to marry Ron one day so she agrees. They look at a few shops but can't settle on anything.

It's a coincidence that she's scheduled to call her parents on a muggle payphone later that day. Her parents live in New Zealand and only talk to her a couple of times a year. The relationship is distant because they have nothing in common now. However, they still care about each other and her parents wish her good luck. Hermione's earliest memories are learning to love books at her mother's knee.

So it's not a complete surprise that less than an hour later she receives the hand-couriered book _Premarital Questions Every Couple Should Ask_. She's surprised to find that some (most) of the questions are things she's never really thought about. She certainly hasn't discussed them with Ron. Reading the book over three times, she writes down all of her answers on a fat scroll.

The following Monday she drags them both over to Ron's flat along with takeout. Ron can barely afford the flat on his joke shop salary but he's so vocal about how he loves living alone for the first time in his life that she's given up on nagging him to get a roommate to share the cost. Since her salary is higher she tries to pay for food to help things out.

Ron frowns as he reads the first foot of scroll with noodles hanging out of his mouth. He finally slurps them in before announcing that he disagrees with more than half of her answers. They look at each other uncomfortably and flip to the list of household duties. That one's even worse, though at least the last question makes both of them laugh when they agree that no normal human being would ever want to do that one.

"I guess we both made assumptions," she tells Ron. She doesn't spell out that they were different assumptions because that part's obvious.

Realizing how late it is and that they have work the next day, she gets up to leave. Biting her lip, she leaves the book and scroll with Ron to go through on his own. Knowing how he is about homework, she doesn't expect him to do much with it unless she nags.

Work is crazy that week so she doesn't have time to nag.

On Saturday, Ron invites her over for brunch. Wanting to both feel comfortable and look attractive, she smooths on her french lilac lotion and wears one of her new outfits: a burgundy velvet boatneck top and dusty blue silk skirt paired with silver-gray robes. A braided rose gold choker covers the red scar slicing across her neck and she pulls her curls back in a french twist. Ron makes her sweetened oatmeal, fried sausages, and tea—the extent of his culinary powers. Conversation is nice. Easy.

Afterward, they go into the living room to continue talking and Hermione notices her book and scroll sitting out. She's surprised to see that the book is now dogeared and has two breaks in the spine. The scroll is unrolled over the table and draped across the floor. Ron has scribbled in the margins of the scroll with words and arrows and diagrams, sometimes writing sideways or upside-down, so much so that the paper almost looks black in several places.

"Huh, you really did work on it." The fact that he'd done it without any nagging actually makes her nervous.

Ron's sideways smile quickly fades into something serious. He gestures at the couch and they both sit down. The secondhand couch sags and slides them sideways, but they're both used to adjusting so they don't get swallowed. Ron licks his lips. "Hermione, I read your scroll all the way through. You're amazing, like super amazing."

She squints at him with the beginning of a confused smile. "Thanks."

"And I am too, just not in the same way. Like, at all. We're very different people."

Hermione's confusion turns to worry. She bites her lip. He's not wrong but—"You are amazing, Ron, an amazing friend and amazing person. That's one of the reasons I love you."

"I love you too, but maybe… maybe we're better off loving each other without being _in love_ with each other."

Hermione blinks. Opens and closes her mouth. Looks down at her lap. Rewinds what he just said. It's a shock, though he's not wrong about this either, it just isn't what she expected him to say. At all. The rules for breaking up with someone call for screaming, hexes, and angry tears, but that doesn't fit this situation at all. She doesn't know what to say.

"Hermione, you have needs and wants that I'm not sure I can meet. I'm not sure I even want to meet them. To do that I'd have to change and compromise and honestly I'd rather not, no matter how selfish that makes me sound. You deserve better. I also want, no, I _need_ to be in a relationship where I'm good enough as is instead of always being someone you think you need to fix. There's a girl out there that will want that, but it isn't you. I deserve better. I want someone who will put me first and love me best."

"Ron—" she starts to protest automatically, but his next words cut her off at the knees.

"Don't, Hermione. Just don't. I know we both tried our best, but it's time to face facts. Besides, if nothing else my bed's only big enough for two, not three."

Hermione sucks in her breath but refuses to otherwise flinch.

"It is what it is." Ron shrugs one shoulder with unexpected maturity. "Add in the books and the evil cat—who still gives me stink face when you're not looking—and my entire bed's gonna collapse under the weight. We're better off sticking to the livingroom and avoiding that mess. Besides, I'm just not that kinky. Unlike you, vanilla's more my style." He forces a smile and wags his brows.

Hermione feels her cheeks turn pink. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I don't always ignore the things you're reading." Ron winks. "And some of that stuff is definitely on the kinky side of I-don't-want-to-know.

She looks down and straightens the seam of her skirt. Theoretical knowledge is still just theoretical. Just because she finds certain ideas interesting doesn't mean she'll ever do them. She's probably even more boring than vanilla because even kissing rarely gets her very excited. (That she'd only kissed Ron by choice and Cormac McLaggan against her will wasn't an amazing sample size but she was also twenty years old and not some girl on the cusp of puberty.)

Ron stands up. "Now, I just remembered I have whipped cream. Maybe some berries too. Is your stomach up for another round? Another round as… friends?" Swallowing hard, the first sign she's seen that this is difficult for him, Ron holds out his hand.

Not hesitating, Hermione takes his fingers and lets him pull her to her feet. She swallows hard too. "Yeah, I'm glad I have a friend like you, Ron Weasley." Her eyes sting. As soon as he releases her hand she can't help but surge forward and throw her arms around his neck in a hug. She's trying not to cry but a few tears escape anyway.

Ron hugs her back tightly, almost too tightly, before abruptly letting go and stepping back. He sounds a little winded. "C'mon, Hermione, it's _whipped cream_. If I didn't like you so much I'd just eat it all myself."

Laughing wetly, she wipes her eyes. "And if I didn't like _you_ so much I'd let you and leave you with the stomach ache."

And that was that. Still friends for life but no longer anything more than that. She feels both relief and loss. She doesn't have a plan for this.

Later that night, alone in her bed, she tosses and turns over what happened, feeling restless and unanchored. Also guilty. What Ron had left unsaid is the fact that Harry is first in her heart and they both know it, even if Harry himself seems clueless. She's never explicitly said it out loud, but Hermione will always put Harry first, both above Ron and above herself. It's a choice she's made so often that it's become a central pillar of her life, one she never saw coming but doesn't regret pitching her tent under. She's broken rules for Harry, willingly abandoned safety and sanity to follow him into danger and possible detention, imprisonment, and death. Even when Hermione thought herself in love with Ron she'd still watched him storm off alone in rage instead of following him so she could stay by Harry's side, despite how many tears she shed while Ron was out of her sight in mortal danger. At the final battle, she'd offered to go and confront Voldemort with Harry even knowing she'd probably die too.

Hermione has lost track of how many times she's offered to follow Harry. Sometimes he takes her up on it, sometimes he doesn't. Either way he never quite seems to consciously get it, doesn't get that she's utterly devoted. He never hesitates to call on her, so at least he has to instinctively know. The main reason she never says anything out loud is Harry doesn't seem to want that level of devotion and responsibility and she refuses to be one more person forcing her expectations on him.

Within six months of the breakup, a new minister is elected to the Ministry because Kingsley Shaklebolt is stepping down to devote more time to his family. At least that's the story. She hopes it's true and he wasn't blackmailed into quitting. She's powerless to do anything about it one way or another so Harry and Ron tell her to let it go.

Then Harry's on-again-off-again relationship with Ginny ends for good with a very public row (with the traditional screaming, hexing, and tears) that gets Harry sent to Saint Mungo's for the night (he's a chivalrous idiot who refused to go full out against his girlfriend and mistakenly believed she'd have the same scruples). All the papers are salivating, especially when just four weeks later Ginny falls into a whirlwind romance with Adebamgbe Botmang, the heir to a wizarding shipping company. He puts a ring the size of a snitch on her finger and she disappears to Nigeria to get to know his family.

Instead of acting sad about Ginny, Harry takes up dating like it's his new favorite sport. His maturity and confidence make him a star player and very popular with the ladies. He never settles down with one girl for more than a month but from what she can see everyone seems to be having a good time.

After a private meeting with the retired Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt, Harry drops out of the Auror academy without explanation. He's obviously upset about it be just as obviously doesn't want to talk. A few weeks later he starts working freelance jobs for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Gringotts Bank, jobs that seem mostly about problem-solving and acquisitions, which is doublespeak for dangerous thrill-seeking and back-street fighting. Hermione gets a promotion right after, so she's too busy to worry as much as she wants to.

For almost a year, everyone is almost happy.

Then the new Minister of Magic takes a bump in the polls and looks around for something to elevate his image. He remembers Harry's existence as The-Boy-Who-Lived and Savior-of-the-Wizarding-World and realizes Harry isn't tucked safely in the Ministry's Auror Academy under his thumb anymore. He starts nagging Harry about what he's expected to do for Britain and what he can say in public and basically trying to manipulate him into working for the Ministry again and being the Minister's personal flunky. When Harry digs in his heels and politely but very VERY firmly says no (i.e. go to hell), the Minister retaliates by releasing private and painful details about Harry's childhood and tells the press that Harry's choosing not to serve the British wizarding people because he's too fragile and immature. The press loves the scandal and starts manufacturing interest pieces about fragile Harry's problems like they're all competing with Rita Skeeter and there's a prize at the end. The British wizarding public goes back to either hero-worshipping, vilifying, or treating Harry like a leper.

It's infuriating and really, really, sad.

Harry veers from almost okay to completely miserable. She never sees him out in public without his stoic face anymore. He starts losing weight. Hermione checks out more books from the library, reads up on healthy coping mechanisms, and stages an intervention. It sort of works. Harry stops starving himself and instead embraces the control and peace found in physical exercise, putting on muscle like he's thinking of entering a wrestling competition. She appreciates the view. Unfortunately, exercise isn't enough.

Harry's still dating, but the average length of his relationships drops from a month to a week. He doesn't even talk about his dates with her anymore. She only knows that much about it because the tabloids keep such close track of his life. At least the women mostly all have good things to say about him, so Harry's doing something right. She tells herself that she's not jealous or curious about the details and that she'd stop paying attention except Harry doesn't seem to be having fun with it anymore and that makes her worried. Ron knows more because he meets girls in the same sort of clubs but he refuses to tell her much about it because she's his ex.

Hermione doesn't visit the clubs herself because she's not sure she wants a boyfriend right now on top of all the other problems she's juggling. Besides, every time she dips even a toe into the dating pool she runs into Cormac McLaggen, who refuses to accept that she doesn't want to date him and always corners her whenever she goes out. He's slipped a potion into her drink at least once that she knows of at a work party. She keeps it quiet from everyone, even Harry and Ron, out of shame and because she was blackmailed into it. Cormac's family is influential enough in the Ministry that she can't do anything permanent to him without risking her job. They're also very convincing with their not-quite-threats and know to include what might happen to Harry and Ron if she publically bad-mouths the favored son. She suspects Cormac's tried to potion her again but she can't prove it, though she did see him holding her drink the last and final time she tried going out to a club. If she had a burning desire to date she might take the time to think up a better solution to the Cormac problem, but since she doesn't she's found that avoiding him works about as well as it did with the bullies at school, meaning that she's occasionally inconvenienced but pretends she doesn't care and tries to reserve her energy for more important things.

Like how Harry's starting to crack and underneath his manners and stoicism is someone a little mean and a lot mad and willing to do insane things with no regard to his personal safety. Harry needs a new challenge to dominate. Right now he's searching for something worthwhile. She's afraid of what might happen if he doesn't find it soon.

Despite her best efforts, Hermione can't keep up with—much less fix—all of Harry's problems. Her bullet point lists end up in the trash. Useless. Head in her hands, she comes to the realization that there are just too many problems entrenched in too many people and institutions. Nothing they've done burns them out of Wizarding Britain for long and _Merlin knows _she's done things that would get her arrested or worse if they ever came out. Heartsore, Hermione finally decides that if she can't get rid of Harry's problems, Harry's going to have to get rid of Wizarding Britain.

Sitting Harry down with a treacle tart and a mug that's half hot chocolate and half whipped cream, she suggests Harry try applying for a job internationally. He resists at first, but when he finally (inevitably) gives in a few days later, she reaches into her purse and whips out the magical job ads from major newspapers in Paris, Rome, Prague, and Berlin. She has Kyoto, Vancouver, Washington D.C., and Bogotá too, but doesn't want to overwhelm him on his first day of looking. Harry wipes a hand down his face, laughs silently, and takes her highlighters to start circling anything that looks even remotely interesting.

Harry, being silly and humble (not to mention abused by most of the authority figures in his life), expects rejection as a matter of course, especially from people not raised to kiss up to the fake legend of Harry Potter, and hems and haws over mailing anything off. She and Ron just look at each other and roll their eyes every time he brings it up. It takes another week of daily nagging to get him to send anything off. Harry's the only one shocked when a few days later a flock of exhausted international owls bombards his window like a hail storm, each carrying an eager offer to hire him, some from companies and places he didn't even apply to.

Surprisingly, Ron and Hermione both favor Harry taking a job with a quidditch club. Quidditch is something Harry would both be good at and enjoy, not to mention the only danger is from a sports injury instead of Dark Wizards and backstabbing politicians. Ron suggests Wizarding Berlin in Germany for the nightlife. Hermione likes Wizarding Sofia in Bulgaria because the libraries were amazing when she visited Victor Krum last winter and she's eager to go back. Both Harry and Ron twitch when she mentions Krum and she realizes her tactical error too late when Harry firmly states he's not interested in Bulgaria. Pouting, she picks up the Berlin offer. At least it includes a good medical package and she has a few contacts there that might be willing to hire her.

Harry, unfortunately, barely considers the safe and fun quidditch job in Wizarding Berlin before honing in on the job offer most likely to get him killed. It comes from the International Confederation of Wizards or ICW, who want to train him to become one of their mysterious and elite special magical investigators (SMIs) who troubleshoot wizarding problems all over the world. Hermione's not happy but she wants to be supportive so she listens as Harry reads from the letter, "Becoming an SMI requires six months of classwork at the ICW academy, which switches countries every few years to remain impartial. If you pass academy finals you will be taken out for three months of intensive private training, including wilderness survival, at a secret location. Trainees who get that far will be sent to the final trials. Graduates are guaranteed work with the ICW for at least two years."

"I've heard that most people flunk out," Hermione warns him.

Harry doesn't seem deterred. "I'm not most people."

Reading over his shoulder, she worries her lower lip with her teeth. "The rate of injury is insanely high."

Ron just laughs when Harry says, "So? It sounds fun."

They're both lunatics. Of course Harry loves the idea of being an SMI. He'd always wanted to be an Auror until Kingsley pulled him aside for that private talk.

Speaking of which—"You never did tell us what Minister Shacklebolt said to make you quit the Auror academy."

Shrugging moodily, Harry looks down and smooths out the creased letter against his leg. "Since he retired from the Ministry, Kingsley said he felt like he no longer needed to protect the institution at the cost of its members—or something along those lines—and that someone should lay out the mire of Ministry politics for me and make it clear that in the current climate there was no way I'd escape being used by the people in power for their own ends. That I could embrace that and have one sort of career or reject it and be shunted off into another, but that the life of a normal Auror out fighting dark wizards was never going to be mine. Neither option appealed to me, so I quit before it got too late to do so without collateral damage."

"Ooh, big word," Ron tells him, trying to break the tension.

Hermione worries the silky edge of her opposite cuff between her fingers. "What if the ICW is just as bad as Britain when it comes to corruption?"

Ron snorts. "That's your pessimism talking."

Harry looks out the window as if seeing something more than gray clouds and yellow-green trees. "It could be, but what if the ICW is so much better? I'd get to see the world and do amazing things helping people and stopping dark wizards as an SMI." He turns back. "Don't forget that Dumbledore was the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW for a while."

"Dumbledore also thought it was okay to keep vitally important information from you and sacrifice your life for the greater good," she says scathingly—though when she ignores what he did to Harry she admires and misses the Headmaster too. Sighing, she drops her head back to glare up at the ceiling. "But from what I've read the ICW academy and SMI department both have good reputations amongst former employees, current employees often being sworn to secrecy depending on the nature of their work and notoriously tight-lipped even when drunk."

"I want to go for it," Harry says decisively.

When Hermione looks over she finds him staring back at her, waiting. She's not sure what for but she gives him her full support. Ron chimes in with the same. Harry starts composing his acceptance letter right away. It's the first time she's seen Harry excited about something in months which makes her feel excited too. They send the letter to the ICW first thing in the morning.

It's inevitable that rumors would start up about Harry leaving Britain. The Ministry of Magic panics. They try to bribe, guilt, and threaten Harry into staying by turns. Hermione and Ron enlist all of their friends and allies to help run interference for Harry, managing to hide a good chunk of the ugliness from him altogether. At least she thinks they do. What Harry does see makes the lines on his face deepen but also makes him more determined to leave than ever.

Early on, Luna suggests in a roundabout way involving a metaphor about a creature that may or may not really exist that they lie to everyone about Harry's departure date to prevent any last-minute travel "accidents." Everyone looks at each other grimly and jumps on the idea. The Ministry is still panicking but they dial back the assaults because they think they have until Christmas break to maneuver things to their liking, not a bare two weeks.

Although Hermione just got another promotion she has no qualms about offering to quit her job and move with Harry to whatever city is secretly hosting the ICW academy. Of course she does. It's _Harry_.

Harry's torn by her offer, she can tell by the way he runs his wand through his fingers for a few minutes in thought, but in the end, he tells her no. He says that because of the secretive nature of his training he won't be able to see much of her even if she does come along. Besides, he doesn't want to ruin the good thing she's building at work.

Hermione thinks about begging him to let her come anyway, thinks about just showing up one day outside his rooms in a fait accompli, but she doesn't want her presence serving as a constant drag and reminder of the problems he's fighting so hard to escape. She wonders if Harry secretly wants a clean break. She doesn't ask because it would hurt if he said yes. She gives up on moving with him but makes him promise to let her visit at least once a year if not every holiday because she's not as unselfish as she tries to be. She knows that going more than a year without seeing him would make her depressed and miserable. At the end of the day, she wants him to be happy, but she doesn't trust Harry to prioritize his happiness as much as she does. It will have to be enough.

_{To Be Continued}_

**AN:** Chapter 2 will be up in a day or two. I wrote this because everyone in my house has been sick for two weeks and Rome 2 is killing me at 32 chapters and more than 9 months of writing and still not being done. I'm torn about how I want to end it, grr, so I took a break and rewarded myself with this hot little HP story (don't ask me about why it's mostly in present tense instead of my usual third-person past tense because it just happened that way and made my life more difficult in the process). Of course, I then ended up with 15 pages of notes about the awesome sequel I could write to this HP fic with magical siphons and angst and drama and magical marriage rites and sex that would probably fade to black because that's how I roll and—[erases the three-paragraph crazysauce summary that makes no sense without spoilers]—and who knows if I'll ever even write it because it would end up being huge and after I finish Rome 2 I promised myself I'd write an original sci-fi novel so we'll have to see. Ahem.

But please write me a comment on this fic! Please please please!


	2. Chapter 2

**A Velvet Goodbye**

A Harry Potter Fanfiction

_By Indygodusk_

**AN:** Warning for an intense makeout scene in the latter half with some Dom/sub overtones but no nudity or sex.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

The night before Harry leaves, Ron invites practically everyone they know to a party at a beachside restaurant in the small wizarding town of Swallowrede. The number of guests almost overwhelms the town's population, which normally only sees the occasional family reunion, a middling number of beach-goers on summer hols, and a limping seaside trade. At this time of year, the water's too cold for swimming but the sand supposedly stays warm enough to walk barefoot on most of the night. Despite the huge guest list, everyone thinks this is a party to announce that Harry's moving away at Christmas-time. Even Luna's not sure of the exact date. Only Hermione and Ron know Harry's really leaving first thing tomorrow morning.

Hermione goes over early to help set up the party and make sure the restaurant has all of Harry's favorite foods (including a literal vat of whipped cream and fifty treacle tarts) and no decorations that might trigger a bad memory or spot of PTSD (she's certain she can't be the only one who struggles with it and has given out muggle books on PTSD to most of her classmates, even the Slytherins like Draco Malfoy). Outside the restaurant, she's amused to see that the farthest jut of the white chalk cliff is stained brown in the shape of a lightning bolt that looks just like Harry's scar, as if he's been immortalized in stone while sneezing waves into the ocean. She wonders if the lightning bolt is why Ron chose Swallowrede.

It's one of the few things that she can smile about today. Hermione doesn't want to celebrate Harry leaving, she wants to lock herself in her room and cry. But she has to suck it up and put on a brave face because his leaving is her idea. She doesn't want Harry to see her desolation and decide to stay a little longer for her sake, making himself miserable under the thumb of the Ministry. And despite the temptation, she doesn't want him to abruptly say she can come along if he's just going to regret it and resent her for being there.

After they finish setting up, Ron grabs Harry for a last-minute broom ride and private farewell. This means Hermione gets her flat to herself while she gets ready. Harry is staying in her spare room tonight and catching a magical boat out of Swallowrede in the morning, so at least she'll have a chance to say her own private goodbye—_which is only temporary_, she reminds herself for the thousandth time. It'll be just like summer vacation at Hogwarts. She knows it would be simpler for Harry to spend the night at Swallowrede's Inn with Ron and half the guests instead of taking the floo network back and forth to her flat, but she's not going to point that out to him if he hasn't already thought of it.

The dress robes she bought for Harry's party are embroidered with small, interlocking red and gold lions along the hem and collar. It's an homage to their shared past in Gryffindor, but now that it's time to get dressed, the embroidery under her fingertips feels too scratchy and uncomfortable. Nothing about Harry leaving is comfortable. Hermione has to stop getting dressed for a bout of crying. The robes end up soaked in tears and snot.

She feels emotionally bruised and physically fragile, with cheeks too stiff for smiling. However, she'd promised herself that Harry would have a good time on his last night in Britain and that means looking like she's having a good time too. If she isn't comfortable on the inside, at least she can fake it on the outside by wearing something that evokes the feeling. After taking a shower as hot as she can stand, Hermione pulls back her curls and smooths on a spicy floral-scented potion named _Distant Murmur_ that leaves a faint gold shimmer and makes her skin feel like silk.

She's got lovely skin if you ignore all the scars: scattered pale lines from enemy spells, the raised L shape on her knee from falling out of a tree at six, and of course the damage left by Bellatrix's torture. That day carved the word _Mudblood_ in her forearm, sliced a thin red line across her neck, and left crescent-shaped bite marks. She doesn't like to remember her time with Bellatrix, still has nightmares of blood and pain and screams, but the PTSD books tell her to remind herself regularly that the scars only mean she's a survivor. They mean she can heal from bad things. It also helps (sometimes) that Bellatrix is DEAD. Even the tree Hermione fell out of got cut down. Only Hermione is still standing.

She tries not to be ashamed, but she likes to keep them hidden beneath her clothes because seeing the still red scars when you're not expecting it doesn't just freak her out, it freaks out other people too. She only shows off the scars when she needs to make a point. Otherwise, she uses modest clothing and chunky jewelry to hide them.

Scars remind Harry of being powerless. He would hide his scars if he could, but having a lightning bolt on his face limits his options. Seeing Hermione's scars hurts him because it reminds him that he can't always protect her and of his failures. She's given him the survivor speech a few times but it never seems to stick. Harry would keep her from ever being hurt if he could. She understands because she feels the same.

If she could get rid of the scars on both of their bodies she would, but one of the reasons curses scar so badly is because the damage isn't just to flesh alone. Curses damage magical channels too. Damage from a weak curse will eventually get compensated for and healed, but a very strong curse or multiple curses in a short frame of time can bend your magic out of shape permanently. A cut made by a clean sharp blade would normally fade to the faintest of white lines. However, if—giving a completely random example—you get hit multiple times by a curse like the Cruciatus around the same time a psychotic Death Eater almost slices open your throat, carves words into your arm, and bites you several times—as sometimes happens—the curse magic will be drawn to the physical damage and pool, deforming the underlying magical channels too. Voldemort manipulated this process to create his Dark Marks.

A novice healer treating Hermione after a work trip that resulted in a bite from a baby centaur (supposedly an accident though she has her suspicions) once thought to erase the red _Mudblood_ scar carved into her arm. For almost a full day Hermione had unblemished creamy skin on her forearm. She kept pulling up her sleeve and stroking back and forth with her fingertips just to feel the smoothness. It didn't last. The hidden magical damage seeped out and corrupted the new skin, forcing scarlet letters to rise up through her flesh like lava pooling in cracked earth. She's still not sure if the pain that caused was physical, mental, or magical. Since she'd have to repeat the experience to know for sure she's choosing ignorance, making sure to tell healers to leave her scars alone.

The clock chimes the hour, breaking her from the agitation of her thoughts. Dropping her towel, she opens her dresser drawer to get dressed, bypassing her fancier underwear sets to pull on her most comfortable cotton knickers, the ones she can't bear to throw away. She'd bought them at Honeydukes of all places during a promotion for Caramel Cobwebs candy. She's always regretted not buying more. The patterned caramel fabric is translucent from use but she's never worn anything softer. The day the knickers finally disintegrate in the wash she's going to cry and woe be to the boy who asks her why because she'll probably be too distraught to make up a lie. She doesn't have a matching bra so she pulls out the first thing that catches her eye, a lavender and lilac lace bra that always makes her smile because of the lovely colors. She needs to feel lovely today.

There's no point in trying to find a dress to compliment mismatched underwear so she just goes to her closet, closes her eyes, and runs her fingers over cloth until she touches something soft and heavy. Opening her eyes, she sees blue-green velvet. In the summer of her fourth or fifth year she'd bought the dress in a fit of indulgence. It's the color of Harry's eyes in the hour before dawn or at the end of a fight, a dark and secret color most people never notice or get the chance to see. The dress is form fitting and cut simply with short sleeves, a high neckline, and a hemline that hits above the knees. Hermione pets her fingers down the side. It's soft and soothing. She needs soothing tonight.

Pulling it on, she looks in the mirror and is reminded once again why she hasn't worn this or anything else with short sleeves in years: it makes her Mudblood scar stand out. At least the bite mark on the back of her bicep is mostly covered by the sleeve but everyone's mood will drop if her torture or the use of the word _mudblood _gets brought up in conversation. When she finally decides to stop hiding the scars she's decided to give her friends fair warning so they can adjust to the change and suck up their own negative reactions in favor of her comfort. However, tonight is not the night for that.

Nevertheless, Hermione wants to wear her velvet dress the secret color of Harry's eyes. Lifting her chin, she refuses to let the ghost of psycho Bellatrix control her (at least not right now). She's going to have to improvise.

Searching out a velvet long-sleeved top from the depths of her closet that's gotten too tight in the chest, Hermione cuts off the sleeves and uses magic to change the color from gold to blue-green. She flicks her wand impatiently to start hemming the first sleeve. The spell ends up both tangling the thread and ripping the fabric. Grumbling, she pulls out her scissors, needle, and thread from where they were hiding underneath her knitting supplies and cuts the hole and tangles off the velvet before just sewing the hem by hand like she should've done in the first place. What she's left with are slouchy arm warmers that go from her palms to a few inches below her elbows. They're not the fingerless opera gloves she was envisioning but they cover the scars and match the dress so she'll take it.

Posing in front of the mirror, she tells herself that the unusual look is almost stylish. Who knows, maybe she'll start a fashion trend? She adds a few pieces of chunky gold jewelry, a light application of makeup, and strappy heels and she's set.

Hermione feels comfortable and her outfit is pretty. The face in the mirror looks sad. She makes herself smile and tells herself she's happy for Harry. It's the truth, so her smile slips into something honest and almost natural.

Good enough.

Things go well at the party until Hermione steps away to use the loo and finds herself cornered at the row of sinks by what feels like half the single ladies in Britain. It's late and everyone's a little crazy. Alcohol is probably involved and the overconsumption of sugar. Women start arguing about who's the better kisser: Harry or Ron. She turns to leave but there are too many bodies blocking the way.

Ron's been having fun playing in the singles dating scene with Harry. Both of them attract girls for being famous. Unlike Harry, Ron mostly embraces it. He still strikes out more than succeeds (or so she's heard) and his dancing is more enthusiasm than technique, but he's found a handful of girls worth taking out to dinner and a couple who enjoy afternoon quidditch matches. Now that they've settled back into friendship, she wishes him luck with finding a good woman who both appreciates and deserves him. That doesn't mean she wants to know details about his new pickup lines and who he's been kissing or doing more with in dark corners.

If he's really been doing things in dark corners with these girls. Hermione has her doubts. A few of them, sure, but double digits? Two girls by the hand towels are waxing poetic about Ron's smooth chest and comparing it to milk-white marble. Hermione rolls her eyes so hard it hurts. She knows for a fact that when Ron takes off his shirt and shows his chest, what skin isn't covered in reddish-gold curls is sprinkled liberally with brown freckles.

Hermione tries to escape again but the raucous laughter draws attention from the hall and more women pile into the loo, pushing her farther away from the door. Bets are placed about who's the better kisser. Some of these girls have to be lying but that still leaves an unsettlingly large number who could be telling the truth. Some hussy she's never met who claims to have cornered both men in multiple clubs pulls out her lipstick and starts making a chart on the mirror. She actually does know a disturbing amount about Ron but there's no way Harry let her lick his scar or took her Latin dancing.

The chart on the mirror generates enough interest that Hermione's almost made it to the door when the piercing voice of Lavender Brown fills the room and makes everyone turn to look. "Hey Hermione, you have to be an expert by now. Who's the better kisser, Ron or Harry? C'mon, we need details." Giggling shrilly, Lavender stands in front of the door and crosses her arms, smugly blocking any escape.

Everyone stares at Hermione, straining forward to listen. They bite lips and chew nails. A dark-haired woman dressed in a cheongsam clutches her hands beneath her chin and holds her breath, looking like she's about to pass out. It's ridiculous. Hermione reminds herself that having the authorities called for a bathroom brawl would make Harry's quiet escape tomorrow difficult. She settles for being quietly furious and coldly polite. "I couldn't really say. Now, will you stop blocking the door so I can get out? Please?"

She's the only one with manners because they hem her in even worse. No one believes Hermione doesn't really know. Everyone thinks she's been sneaking away to broom closets with both boys since at least her fourth year if not even earlier (thanks Lavender, just… thanks).

The argument somehow dissolves into a competition to provide the best description of each man's kissing technique. Harry's followers have the numbers but Ron's supporters make up for that in volume and flowery metaphors. One of the front-runners is the daughter of a poet and someone Hermione's pretty sure only dates other girls. It's insane. There's so much BS in this room she's surprised the toilets haven't overflowed.

That said, considering the sheer number of speakers, statistically, at least some of them have to be legitimate.

Hermione's fine with Ron dating other people. And Harry goes out a lot since breaking up with Ginny, so obviously he has to have kissed a lot of girls too. However, knowing this about Ron and Harry theoretically and hearing about it (whether fact or fantasy) in excruciating detail is frankly, well, _excruciating_.

Hermione is tired. Tired of listening to this, tired of putting on a happy face about Harry moving far away without her, and tired of pretending not to be jealous that she seems to be the only woman in Britain who hasn't kissed Harry. She's not going to break her rules for the evening by starting a fight, but when Ron's supporters start pulling hair and Harry's fumble out their wands to retaliate with hexes, Hermione uses it as an excuse to exorcise her frustration by jinxing the lot of them and getting out of there fast. If on her way out the door she kicks Lavender and the woman who was drawing diagrams on the mirror, well, it's _clearly_ on accident. Whoops.

Luckily the party winds down soon after that. Harry looks happy as he's mobbed with farewells. There's a lot of back-slapping from the guys and full-body hugs that go on for just a little too long with the girls and many promises to do this again before Harry leaves at Christmas-time (the lie that everyone's still swallowing).

Hermione quietly slips away to keep her pleasant mask from shattering and slicing into the cheery mood.

Sometime later Harry finds her out on the moonlit beach. She's standing barefoot in the warm sand, dangling her heels from two fingers while the pungent ocean breeze tugs her curls free of their pins, mesmerized by the dark waves battering themselves to white foam against the moonlit cliff face. No matter how hard the waves hit, or how high the water claws, nothing ever reaches the lightning-shaped mark. The very futility of the water's violence is comforting.

"That's you," she tells Harry. He'll either get it or he won't. From the way his face changes as he glances over at the cliff and back at her from the corner of his eye, she knows he does.

She leans against his shoulder. Neither of them is willing to break the peace by talking. Harry reaches across her body to take the shoes from her fingers and tucks them under his arm. He looks down at the loose brown curl that's blown across his chest and gently rubs it between his fingers. Twisting it into a spiral, he tucks it behind her ear. His fingers are warmer than the night air and feel good against her skin.

There's no hesitation when he touches her. No question on whether he's welcome. She's glad he understands that much.

They turn in tandem and walk back to the patio where there's a fireplace connected to the floo network. She gestures for Harry to go first, wanting to make sure no one tries to stop him from leaving. Giving her a side-eye, Harry's lips quirk as if he finds her protectiveness sweet but silly. She arches one brow and says nothing. Sighing, he takes a pinch of floo powder, says her address, and steps through. She quickly follows.

Too quickly.

When the fireplace spits Hermione out in her living room, she trips on Harry's heel and almost goes flying. Harry drops her heels and snaps an arm around her waist, pulling her tightly against his body. He's completely steady already and doesn't let her go until he's sure she's alright. A bag full of gifts that she'd barely noticed on the beach slides down his shoulder and bumps into her arm. It doesn't hurt at all but it does remind her all over again that he's leaving. That hurts. She sees a smudge of pink glitter on his neck in the shape of lips. That burns.

Her peaceful state goes up in flames.

The air between them flips to full-on tension no matter what she tells herself about staying calm and making sure Harry gets a peaceful night's sleep before his travels tomorrow. She's doing her best to hide how devastated she's feeling, but just when she almost gets a hold of herself she sees the smear of pink glitter on his neck and jealousy boils up all over again. She tries to tell herself that at least he's not sporting a hickey on their last night together. It doesn't help. Hermione knows her emotions are overriding her rationality but she Just. Can't. Stop it.

It's grossly unfair that she doesn't know what it's like to kiss Harry considering every other girl in Britain has had a go. She's the best friend here, not them. She's the loyal one!

Harry gives her a wary look and sits down on a kitchen chair to start weeding through the presents in his bag. Gritting her teeth, Hermione fists a hand in the velvet on her leg and tries to act like everything is normal. It should be a fun task but tension gathers in the corners of his eyes and hinge of his jaw. He gives everything he doesn't want to keep to Hermione.

With a curt, "thanks," she slams the items carelessly onto her bookshelves one by one. The banging is satisfying in that it keeps her from screaming or bursting into tears. Harry gives her a dirty look. She keeps doing it anyway. He's leaving almost every gift in the bag behind.

Just like he's leaving her.

When she breaks a yellow divining rod into three pieces with how hard she slams it onto the mantle Harry finally snaps. "Hermione, just what is your problem?"

"You don't want to know!"

"Yes I do, that's why I asked!"

"Fine!" Stomping over, Hermione sweeps the almost empty bag off his legs onto the floor and straddles his lap.

Mouth dropping open, Harry's eyes zero in on how her velvet dress rides up her thighs before his gaze snaps back to her face. He gulps. "What are you doing?" He sounds breathless and a bit gravelly.

Baring her teeth in her best semblance of a sexy smile, Hermione reaches over and rubs the pink lipstick off his neck. "I want you to kiss me so I know what all of the fuss is about. All the girls at the party kept talking about your lips and it got me curious. Since everyone assumes I've kissed you anyways, I thought I should at least get the first-hand experience before you disappear on me."

Something in Harry's eyes goes flat and hard. She should feel bad but she's too busy hiding from her real feelings by being brazen. She's not backing down.

Harry releases a slow breath. "Anything for the sake of knowledge, huh?" he asks in a low voice. Her mouth is too dry to answer but he doesn't seem to expect one. "Sure, why not?" She licks her lips, suddenly nervous, and starts overthinking things.

Reaching up to touch her cheek with his fingertips, Harry exerts the barest pressure to tilt her face down. He focuses on her lips, eyes going heavy-lidded, and hesitates for a heartbeat before touching his mouth to hers. The kiss is soft and sweet and tightly controlled. It's everything the women in the loo had waxed poetic about.

Hermione's heartbeat barely reacts. This isn't what she wants. It's a kiss, technically a nice one, but this isn't the real Harry. She wants honest and raw and this is restrained and practiced. The rub of his lips along hers makes her cheeks heat, but more because she feels stupid and like she's ruined something. Her eyes sting. She wanted a real kiss and knows she's never going to get one because Harry doesn't want her. The thought makes her mad. Anger is safer than crushing despair.

The second the kiss ends she slides back off his legs. Harry's hands tighten for a second on her hips, making her retreat stutter, before his callouses rasp across the velvet as he lets her go—_deliberately_ lets her go, as if making a point that he didn't have to if he hadn't wanted to. His eyes clash with hers, saying the same thing. She stumbles over his boots and backs up until she hits against the counter. Being barefoot when he's wearing boots makes her feel vulnerable. More vulnerable.

The kitchen is small. Harry watches her without speaking. He crosses his long legs and leans back in his chair, his boots only a few inches away from her bare toes, putting on the nonchalant expression he's learned to wear in front of reporters and politicians who only get worse if he shows any fear.

Hermione doesn't know how to react to that look being directed her way so she throws out rationality and embraces emotion (the voice of experience shouts in her head that she always regrets doing this later, but she stuffs a sock in its mouth and opens her lips). She ends up regretting it the moment she hears what comes out of her mouth, but by then it's too late. "What kind of a kiss was that? If you didn't want to give me a real kiss you should've just said so instead of faking it."

Straightening up in his chair, Harry drops the careless act and sends her an affronted glare. "What's that supposed to mean? That's how I kissed all those other girls you've been talking to."

Hermione can't help but roll her eyes. "That's either a lie or a tragedy, but whatever, Harry."

Surging to his feet, Harry's green eyes glint with temper and edge towards blue. "What is your problem, Hermione?! Why are you being like this?"

The tip of Hermione's tongue tingles with the answer—_because I love you and you're leaving me!_

But she finally manages to find some self-control and snaps her teeth shut on the declaration. Harry isn't responsible for her feelings. She needs to remember that and stop being such a horrible friend. Harry is leaving tomorrow to find happiness and healing and here she is picking a fight even though she's the one who convinced him to leave. She wants to scream and weep, but that's not the memory she wants Harry to take with him or the memory she wants to keep.

Turning away, she drops her head forward, places her hands flat on the counter, and tries to wrestle her wayward heart back into submission. "It doesn't matter. Just ignore me, Harry. I'm going to leave before I say or do anything else stupid. We're fine. I'll come out for breakfast tomorrow and to see you off. Just—just forget that I made you kiss me, alright?" Not waiting for a response, she moves quickly out of the kitchen and crosses through the living room towards her bedroom door down the hall.

Just before she reaches the hallway, familiar fingers close around her wrist and spin her back around. Shocked, Hermione finds herself flattened against Harry's chest as he walks her backward. She stumbles but he doesn't let her fall, doesn't let her do anything but move where he wants her to go. Her back hits the wall and the air leaves her lungs. Unyielding fingers shove her arm above her head and hold it there while his knee slides between her legs, keeping her trapped and off-balance. Her other arm is locked between his chest and upper arm against his back.

Harry's eyes turn the blue-green of burning copper as he cages her against the wall and leans forward until only a hard breath separates their lips. "You make me _crazy_, but obviously if my kissing technique is so forgettable I'll have to do better. You want honest and real? This is me being real."

Instead of feeling intimidated, Hermione feels thrilled. It's like she's just gotten into her favorite professor's class that she's been begging to take for years. A fizzy current runs through her body. Instead of struggling, she relaxes back into his hold. She looks up and licks her lips. Her tongue glances off the slightly rough stubble next to Harry's mouth, he's that close. He jolts and leans back, eyes going dark as he focuses on her lips, and then his hand is on her jaw, tilting her face for his kiss and positioning her mouth exactly where he wants it.

This time, he's not worrying about being nice.

Harry's mouth is demanding and searingly hot, as if he's placing a brand. His broad tongue laps across her lips and teases along the seam, tracing back and forth before sliding just barely inside to flick against her teeth and inside her upper lip. Hermione shivers and swallows a moan. She's never felt this aroused before and he's barely even touched her. It's crazy.

Harry pulls back the merest fraction and stares into her eyes without any restraint or masks, letting her see the hungry and dominant predator she's roused with her words and attitude, giving her fair warning of the consequences she's got coming if she doesn't say no right now.

She's not going to say no. Inside she's shouting yes. Harry looks more alive and engaged than she's seen in months and it's all focused on her. She wants anything he's willing to give her.

Hermione spares a brief moment to wonder if seeing Harry like this and figuring out she couldn't change him is what finally drove Ginny off. Since the tragedy of the war, Ginny doesn't like it when things get too emotionally heavy and, after being possessed by Tom's diary, she doesn't react well to being controlled. You don't get much heavier or more controlling than Harry right now.

It's delicious.

"Better, but you still don't look convinced. I can see you thinking too much." Moving his thumb to her mouth, Harry runs it over her slippery bottom lip and slides it down to her chin. He presses down. "Open wider for me, 'Mione." His voice is rough and demanding, the vibration moving into her chest and making her quake. She'd whimper if she could catch her breath. Closing her eyes, she obeys, parting her lips as ordered and pretending she hears _my own_ instead of just her nickname, that he's going to claim more than just her mouth and for longer than the length of a single kiss, that she's going to be owned in the way she's only admitted to needing in her dreams and most secret fantasies.

Her thoughts disappear into sizzling sensation as Harry lays siege to her mouth, demanding surrender with every thrust of his tongue. In the face of his dominance she has no desire to resist. She is desire.

Hermione submits and a shivery little something unfurls deep inside her chest. Everything she is goes pliant and becomes attuned to the slide and thrust of Harry's mouth. His hard body rubs against her curves and the humming beneath her skin rises like the purest tone of a tuning fork, resonating to the frequency of his demands. His mouth drifts away from her lips, tracing the contours of her cheek and brow before trailing down her throat, gliding his teeth down the tendon in her neck and then nuzzling beneath her collar to nip and suck at the skin hidden beneath, pushing up her necklace with his nose to lave his tongue across the scar there with utmost tenderness.

Sobbing for breath, lids open but blind, Hermione tries to undulate closer but Harry holds her exactly where he wants her to be. He licks her velvet-draped clavicles, his hot, moist breath puffing maddeningly down her dress and over the swell of her breasts, making them feel almost painfully sensitive and confined. She's trembling.

Instead of moving his mouth down to where she wants it to go he moves up, dragging open lips up the side of her throat and sucking on the throbbing pulse between his teeth as if drinking in her pleasure and claiming it as his. She cries out, overcome. His mouth pulls back as he looks at the mark he's left with dark, masculine pleasure. She arches her neck, presenting herself.

Sucking in his breath, Harry jerks and growls, returning his mouth to her skin and ravenously kissing and licking along the edge of her jaw. He moves to her ear, sucking on her earlobe and nibbling up the curve. She's so focused on the tingling shocks caused by his mouth that she's caught off guard when he rubs his body against her lower curves. She has no defense against the way he makes her feel. Harry shifts until she's riding his thigh, drawing uncontrollable, animalistic sounds from her parted lips.

She wants more, wants to dig her fingers into the muscles she feels clenching and straining up and down his body, wants to kiss and lick his skin and make him moan and sigh in pleasure. She's able to dig her fingers into his back but can't reach more. She's greedy for more.

Hermione tugs futilely at the hand caged overhead but Harry keeps it pinned with a grip that's firm but not tight enough to bruise. She's not getting it out unless he lets her out. The thought sends a zing of excitement down her spine. She tugs again just to confirm his possession. She's never been pinned by a man like this and never thought she'd want to be. She wouldn't with anyone else, but this is Harry. She knows she can trust him to take care of her. Harry is her rock. Despite all her theoretical knowledge she's assumed, even after Ron's teasing, that her desires are pedestrian and boring, but after this, she might have to accept that she has a heretofore undiscovered kink. Or maybe she just has a kink for Harry because everything he's doing is perfect.

Harry's hand moves from bracing his weight against the wall to caressing across the velvet covering her hip. Her heart jumps into her throat. His hand feels huge. Possessive. The velvet dulls the sensation, but she knows his fingers are scarred and calloused from flying brooms, wandwork, duels, and the physical fights he gets into for work that he thinks she doesn't know about. His fingers glide down from her hip to thigh, inching up the velvet of her dress until she feels the shocking roughness of his fingertips sliding beneath the fabric. His hand flattens on her bare flesh and curves around to smooth up the back of her thigh. Goosebumps break out over her skin as what has to be Fiendfyre races through her veins and explodes. There's no thought, just sensation. She whimpers and drops her head back against the wall with a thunk. Harry's teeth worry the curve of her ear. His panting breath is the only thing she hears outside of the drumming of her blood. Hot fingers burn a slow path up her thigh and over the swell of her bottom, kneading at her curves before dragging up to rub possessively along the strip of naked skin in the small of her back just above the elastic of her caramel knickers.

Harry hisses something that sounds almost like parseltongue and abruptly drops his knee from between her legs, pulling her forward against his hardness. They moan a duet, their naked desire separated by only a few thin layers of cloth. Passion enslaves her. Hermione's pulse beats between her legs like the hooves of a galloping stag. She yearns to race after it and feel the clench of capture. Harry swivels his hips against her molten core and a thousand Lumos charms explode behind her clenched eyes. Sobbing, she's drenched in pleasure and convulses in his arms.

Breathing like a bellows, Harry pants her praises as he presses burning hot kisses across her cheeks, up the bridge of her nose, and over her forehead. She blindly follows, lifting her mouth for his kisses but he denies her, moving his mouth to her raised arm to lick across the delicate skin of her inner elbow, which still has a faint gold shimmer from the potion she'd rubbed on after her bath. There's no relaxing beneath the assault of his tongue and Hermione squirms against the tickling sensation. Rubbing his grin back and forth against her skin, Harry silently laughs.

Turning her head, she presses kisses to the hinge of his jaw and fall of his hair. Harry gives a trembling sigh and mouths silent words against the blue-green velvet covering her forearm. She presses kisses to whatever parts of him she can reach. Harry hums but doesn't cooperate by moving his face closer.

Breathing in her sweat-slicked skin and the lingering spicy floral hints of _Distant Murmur_, Harry's nose drags up and down her trapped arm. Relaxing his hold around her wrist, he carefully bites down on the hem of the velvet arm warmer and tug down with his teeth, baring her palm to night air slipping in through the partially open window. Her skin experiences only a few seconds of chill before his hand shackles her wrist again and his thumb presses up into the dampness of newly exposed flesh, firmly rubbing up and down the sensitized skin of her palm in an erotic motion that sends a lightning bolt of desire zapping down her arm and straight to her core all over again. Hermione can't help but cry out and roll her hips forward. The hand in the small of her back clenches hard enough to bruise.

Merlin, she hopes it bruises and leaves behind a mark of Harry's possession for when he's gone. She wants that _desperately_.

For when he's gone.

The world turns to ice with the reminder and she tenses up involuntarily, avoiding the kiss he's about to give her so she can catch her breath. Just for a moment.

Harry freezes. She sucks in air, tells herself not to be an idiot, and presses her lips back against his mouth. Harry doesn't respond to the kiss. She presses harder.

Abruptly Harry pulls back from her mouth and his hand whips out from under her dress.

Hermione's eyes pop open and she looks at him with confusion.

Releasing her wrist, Harry fists his hands on the wall over her shoulders, bracketing her between his arms but not touching her. Her hands drop limply to her sides, but otherwise she stays still. She can see him smothering the embers of his desire but she has no idea why.

Harry searches her face, focus jumping back and forth between her eyes and mouth but not in a way that says he's still thinking about kissing her. His lips thin to a slash and dark thoughts race behind his eyes. When a muscle starts ticking in his jaw and his eyes narrow she finally identifies the expression: protective rage.

She opens her mouth but before she can say anything, Harry leans forward and sniffs suspiciously at her breath. "Damn it, I should've known better." Beneath the anger he looks guilty. "I can't smell anything for certain. Did someone slip something into your drink during the party? Maybe that bastard Cormac McLaggan? Did he sneak in? I know he's still chasing after you. I know he potioned you at a work party even though you tried to hide it from me. I told Cormac that if he ever tries something like that again I'd curse him so hard he'd have to piss through a straw and then I'd beat him mute, and that if he tries to hide from me I'll make sure he gets bitten by a venomous snake." Violence crackling through his body, Harry looks only a couple of steps away from storming out and making good on his threat.

"What? No, Harry. No one potioned me. I'm fine. This is all me."

Harry searches her face for truth, stubborn in his doubt. She meets his eyes calmly.

Lips pressing white, his nostrils flare. "Hermione, this isn't—you've never wanted—"

Whatever he sees in her face makes his voice cut off abruptly. He drops his head and she can't see his expression through the fall of dark bangs. "You can't want…." Pausing to clear his throat, his voice goes quiet in its intensity and vulnerability. "Shouldn't you be telling me no?"

It takes a moment for Hermione to comprehend the question and another to stop staring at him stupefied. Later she'll add not biting her tongue to her long list of regrets, but made raw and emotional by passion, she finds herself stripped of filters. "Harry, I've never said no to you and I'm never going to say no to you."

Head snapping up and eyes going wide, Harry jerks away from her and stumbles back until he bumps into the armchair. He looks wrecked by her words, staring at her like she's just turned his world upside down. "You shouldn't give me that much power." Trembling fingers push his hair back from pale cheeks and bloodless lips. "You shouldn't." He looks away and drops his hands. Steps back to put the airchair between them.

Hermione's always been pants at thinking on her feet and this just proves it. Cold air slides over her bare thighs and turns the sweat slicking her forehead and throat to ice. She's supposed to be smart but she feels stupid. About everything.

She's not sure what she would've done if he'd kept on going hot and heavy and her knickers had come off. Even ignoring the massive emotional fallout, she's always promised herself she'd use contraceptives when she eventually decides to have sex. There was no deciding tonight but it had still almost happened, might have if Harry hadn't gotten protective. She's been devoting herself to advancing her career instead of finding a man and is completely unprepared for this. She doesn't have any birth control potions in the flat and isn't taking anything regularly because of the unwanted side effects.

Passion had shut her brain down. She silently apologizes to all the girls she's judged over the years for falling into this same situation and to Ron for not understanding his struggle when they'd dated to keep his hands and hips in pre-agreed safe zones. She'd had no idea.

A hard wind blows in through the open window and ruffles the sweat-soaked hair in front of her ears. The chill serves as a reminder to stop getting lost in her head and start moving. Looking down, she smooths her dress back down into place with unsteady hands and steps away from the wall, swallowing to wet her dry mouth.

Distantly she thinks about how she's going to have to either cover this patch of wall with a bookshelf or else take a blasting curse and sledgehammer to it. There's no way she can walk by it every day and remain unaffected once Harry is gone.

And he's going to be gone.

In less than twenty-four hours, Harry is leaving Britain and starting a new life without her. She's offered to follow and he said no. He's finally doing something for himself, kicking off the perpetual weight of Wizarding Britain's unreasonable and hurtful demands. She can't ruin this for him. Her heart betrayed her with that kiss, but she's put her brain back in control. Before he leaves she wants—_needs_ their last moments together to be good ones.

Right now things aren't looking good.

Harry's still staring at her silently and Hermione's mind spins frantically, trying to figure out how to undo the damage of what she just admitted out loud. "You know what I mean." Pulling on her Gryffindor courage, she forces herself to meet his eyes and quickly spins an alternative explanation. "I'm always willing to yell wait for a thinking break. And I'm also still saying no to letting you do idiotic things and anything involving me having to fly, play organized sports, or break rules just for the thrill of it." She forces herself to laugh and act like her heart's not breaking. "We're best friends after all."

"Hermione, we are best friends… but I…." Harry looks flat-footed and lost. Does he think she's going to make a big scene? That she'll insist he stay with her and figure this out instead of taking off tomorrow? But she knows Harry. It's much more likely that he fears that he'll hurt her somehow or that becoming seriously romantic will shatter their friendship. Neither Cho nor Ginny stayed friends with him after their breakups, even though both girls had dumped him first, and Harry hadn't given any of those new girls the tabloids posted pictures of the chance to get close to him, always meeting up with them in public instead of privately at his home or with friends.

Hermione has more faith in herself and their years of friendship. They can weather anything, even trying and failing to find love with each other. Even making out against the living room wall. She's certain of it because she sticks by her choices and she's decided to not let this damage their friendship.

However, the threat of losing her obviously terrifies Harry too much to try.

And maybe Hermione is a horribly selfish person after all because she's flattered and tempted to push it anyway, to force him to face the explosive attraction uncovered with that kiss and see what else hides down the rabbit hole. Harry might be planting his feet, but there's a fifty/fifty chance that once he calms down and really thinks about them being together romantically, that if she leverages the desires of their bodies and hearts against his nebulous fear of changing the status quo, he might find a way to love her the way she's always hoped for and needed, the way she wants to love him.

Yet even with the passionate kisses they've just shared, Harry doesn't look lovestruck. He doesn't look at her like he'd once looked at Cho and Ginny and the other girls who came and went. There's no giddy excitement hiding behind his eyes. He looks vulnerable. And the longer the silence goes on the worse his expression gets. There's resignation in the corner of his mouth that says he's bracing himself for another injury. Fear is building in his arms and back. Harry should never look at her like that, like she isn't safe.

So Hermione chooses not to be selfish after all.

It hurts and it's harder than it looks, but she manages it. "Harry, it's fine. We're fine, okay? Best friends forever." The jagged red scars _M U D_ are peeking out on her arm and taunting her silently. Tugging her arm warmers back into place, hiding her pain in soft velvet, she moves to Harry and gives him a friendly hug, just like the hundreds of friendly hugs she's given him through the years with no underlying sexual tension because that's who she's choosing to be right now.

Harry's muscles slowly untense as his head drops to the curve of her shoulder, giving a shaky sigh that flutters past her neck and through her disheveled curls to tickle her nape.

Before his hands can come up and reciprocate the hug, can come up and hold her and remind her of how those hands had pressed her against the wall possessively but would probably never hold her like that again, she casually slides away. She doesn't say _sweet dreams_, not when her tongue wants to plead _dream of me._ She knows that there will be no rest for her tonight and no chance for her dreams to be anything but bitter for some time to come. None of that needs to be said.

Luckily there are rules about what to safely say at times like this. "Good night, Harry." Simple, polite, and honest.

But Harry has always been the bravest of them all, striding into danger unflinchingly and tossing rules aside. Just before she closes her door she hears him call her name. She pauses with her hand on the doorframe and looks back over her shoulder.

There's a raw honesty in his face that's almost painful to look at. "I can't fake being safe and normal with you. Since the war ended, there's something broken in me, something jagged and needy. It will cut anyone who gets too close and swallow you whole without chewing. That's why you were right about me leaving Britain. I know you don't want to hear it, but if they push me too far I will snap and I don't think I care anymore if I survive the next time."

Hermione flinches and feels ill.

"All of the mirrors are blinding me and I can't find the real me. I'm not going to say tonight was a mistake, but Merlin's beard is it awful timing." Harry rubs his face and gives a humorless laugh. "I can't do this right now. If I hurt you accidentally while figuring myself out, I'd never forgive myself. Leaving by myself is still the best option."

Tears cut wet lines down Hermione's cheeks. "Harry—"

"If I could make it work with anyone, it would be you. Right now I'm barely making it work by myself."

"I could come with you. I could help."

"You could, but Hermione, be honest. Do you really think that's a good idea? For you? You've only recently recovered your mental equilibrium from all of the rules you broke and the danger you faced while fighting Voldemort with me. You also just barely began getting the recognition and power at work to change things for the better and you had to practically live at the office and pretend to be someone different to get it. Do you really want to leave all that progress behind and start over again? I'm going to be spending most of the next couple of years either sequestered in training or hopping around the globe on missions. Even if you came with me, I wouldn't be there for you very often. Just because you can do something, just because you're willing, doesn't mean it's good for you. Right now, I'm not the safety and stability you need—"

And that hurts most of all because he's right. She does crave safety and stability. That's how she survives what she went through and keeps moving when the nightmares drag her down. She's fought hard to get to where she's at right now and she's proud of how far she's come. The thought of starting over again is frightening. As much as she wants to scream at Harry that there has to be another way, she can't see one though the blur of her tears.

"—and I'm certainly not the kind of man a woman like you deserves."

Scrubbing her cheeks with her velvet arm warmer, Hermione snorts and scowls at Harry. "You may be great at guessing my desires, but you don't get to decide who and what I deserve. That's for me to decide—-my choice—and I want you, Harry."

Pressing his lips tight, Harry swallows and looks down, obviously affected. "Maybe one day, _hopefully _one day I'll be able to call you mine and feel like I deserve it. But whether that day comes or not, and no matter where we end up, I want to always be your friend."

It's not simple or easy, but it doesn't have to be complicated either. "I am your best friend and don't you forget it," Hermione tells him, ignoring the tremble in her voice so he can do the same. She wipes her face dry and smiles. "And Ron too of course, but without the potential for kissing."

Harry wrinkles his nose and sticks out his tongue in disgust, making an effort to lighten the mood. "You may have kissed both of us, but I'm happy to remain ignorant about that forever. If I ever do kiss a bloke, Ron won't be it."

"Oh ho ho, and what does that mean?" she teases, just as happy to move on from heavy topics as he is. "Or is the better question who?"

Sputtering, Harry turns red. "No one! I just mean I'm done with redheads."

It wouldn't be half as funny if Ron didn't pop out of the fireplace at that very moment and trip over Hermione's forgotten heels, smacking into Harry's chest.

"Gah!" Harry looks down at the redhead draped in his arms and promptly drops Ron onto the floor.

Hermione puts her arms around her sides and bursts into slightly hysterical laughter. Harry joins in and they share a look that says the former topic is firmly closed. Now is a time for friendship. Everything else will have to wait, not dead but… dormant.

"Hey, no need to be rude!" Ron tells them crossly. Pushing to his feet, he holds up a lopsided bag. "I got bored so I thought I'd come over with some board games. In honor of our Hogwarts days I stole some leftover snacks from the restaurant's kitchen."

"I'm going to clean up and change into pajamas and then I'll come back out," Hermione tells them as the two start arguing over a container of what looks like whipped cream on top of treacle tarts. She closes her door and leans her head against the wood, tears of laughter sliding once more into tears of pain. She wishes this didn't hurt so much.

A minute later she hears a series of crashes out in the living room that sound like several somethings just broke, potentially her lamp and vase. She puts her ear flat against the door. It's suspiciously silent before she hears stifled laughter and a muffled curse. They try to keep their voices down but she recognizes the sound of a Mending Charm being cast, first by Ron and then by Harry. She's the one who first taught that charm to Harry a lifetime ago.

Drying her tears, she thinks of the children they used to be and smiles as she strips off her dirty clothes. It might've been a hard road but the three of them didn't turn out too badly. As her scars constantly remind her, they all survived. Things may not be perfect but their story is far from over. She's choosing to focus on the future possibilities instead of the present pain.

She doesn't let herself hesitate before rubbing Weasleys' bruise removal paste over the marks on her throat. Ron will ask questions if he sees them and now is not the time to talk of what might someday be between her and Harry. After a very fast shower, Hermione casts a Hot-Air Charm to dry off, ignoring how it makes her curly hair puff up like a dandelion. Her friends have seen her look a lot worse and won't care.

She's going to get comfortable and go out there and have a good time. Pulling on a short-sleeved satin pajama set in Gryffindor red and gold with matching fuzzy socks, she marches out into the front room and makes sure they haven't broken anything she actually cares about. Harry gives her a probing look behind Ron's back and she smiles, letting him know he hasn't broken anything worth caring about either. Harry smiles back faintly and she knows they're going to be okay.

Turning to Ron, she plops down on one side of the game board they've set up on the coffee table and wiggles her fingers to silently demand a fair share of the peaches hiding underneath the mountain of whipped cream Ron's got clutched to his chest.

It's a good night.

Early the next morning they take Harry to the docks in Swallowrede. The tide is up and the fog is heavy, making the briny air feel damp and chill. Most of the town is still tucked in bed sleeping. Waiting in the water is the wizarding ship bound for Spain where Harry's to be met by a liaison from the ICW. Seeing the flag flying on the mast, Hermione's pretty sure the ship belongs to the fleet owned by Ginny's Nigerian fiancé. She decides not to mention that fact out loud.

Harry and a party of five Japanese grandmothers are the only passengers on the docks. The Japanese witches are too distracted munching on onigiri and choux creams while complaining about the underwhelming colors of British autumn foliage compared to the countryside of Japan to notice the British celebrity in their midst. Everyone is yawning. As boarding starts the grandmothers climb on first, leaving the three friends standing alone on the predawn pier.

They all (not just Hermione) cry and hug and promise to write and keep in touch. Hermione informs Harry that she will be visiting at his _earliest _convenience. Harry gives her a tight hug and forceful, "You better," pressing a hard kiss to her cheek before turning and practically sprinting up the gangplank. She avoids Ron's knowing look to wave goodbye.

Standing at the railing, Harry waves enthusiastically until the ship sinks completely beneath the water with a burble and hiss. His clothes have to be completely soaked, but at least the magic should keep him from drowning. Hopefully he remembers to change into new clothes before he meets the ICW liaison in Paris. Smelling of salt and fish isn't the best first impression.

Arm in arm, Hermione and Ron stroll down the beach and back into town. They stop for a few minutes to watch the yellow sun rise above the ocean and burn off the pale morning fog. When the lightning bolt mark becomes visible on the cliffs they look at each other and smile before splitting up. Ron returns to his hotel room and a promised breakfast buffet with his mates while Hermione returns to her flat.

Although she has a lot of regrets about yesterday, she decides that kissing Harry isn't one of them. That's a memory she's going to hold close and relive in detail later when she's not feeling so raw. Today she's going to be kind to herself. Pulling out her Jade Jungle bubble bath, she floats in whipped cream for a while and refuses to think about anything but palm trees and acrobatic monkeys. After the bath she smooths on her lilac lotion and pulls on sinfully soft cashmere robes.

Out in the kitchen she hears crunching. Going to investigate, she finds Crookshanks. He winds around her ankles and looks smugly pleased, making her suspect he's just returned from a nocturnal visit with the neighbor's cat.

Hermione brews herself a mug of peppermint hot chocolate and drinks it standing up by the window, watching the fluffy clouds slowly dance across the sky. Afterward, she curls up in her favorite armchair with a new book and pats her leg for Crookshanks to hop up into her lap. Sighing softly, she spends the next few hours petting his luxuriously soft fur, surrounding herself with the scent of paper and ink, and letting the future—for now at least—take care of itself. Even as she finishes the book, she knows her own story is far from over.

**The End** (for now)

* * *

**AN:** Thank you for reading. I hope you're all healthy unlike the people around here, sigh. Please leave me a comment! They make me want to write more stories for you and make me happy. This story came from some notes I wrote down two years ago and abandoned. I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to writing up the sequel, but be assured that a few years after this Harry and Hermione end up married and very happy both in and out of the bedroom. I have to finish my other projects first, like Rome 2. This story is written to be fun and entertaining, so don't get upset about stuff that doesn't fit your idea of canon, please. I made up the stuff about scars because if fits my head-canon and plot needs for the potential sequel. The run-on sentences are how I felt Hermione was expressing her emotion so please just deal with it. There's also a huge 2-part response in the comment threads of AO3 explaining why I write what I write when it comes to gender roles and sex if you're interested. I like to toe the line of titillation but I'm not comfortable writing explicit sex scenes, so don't bother asking. This is as close as I come—which felt pretty darn close! There's also cover art on my Indygodusk Tumblr. Constructive criticism is welcome but not rudeness or bad manners. If you hated it, I don't want to know. If I accidentally say Ron is a blond, definitely correct me! I hope you enjoyed this and once again, PLEASE leave a helpful or nice comment telling me what you thought.


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